


To Want for Nothing

by oxfordlunch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Birthdays, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mild Language, Minor Violence, POV Sirius Black, Vignettes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 11:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5204954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordlunch/pseuds/oxfordlunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no family members singing, no happy returns. Nobody tells him to make a wish. He thinks of one anyhow. He closes his eyes and pleads silently to whoever could possibly listen that he might be taken away from this. He wishes for red and gold and warm, clean air, and for someone to sing on his birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Want for Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2015 RS Games, Team Star.
> 
> Thank you to my beta FleurDeLis22B, without whom I would not have had this story finished at all. Also many thanks to imochan for being this little story's biggest fan ;)

Today, it is his birthday.  
  
The dining room is dark, the velvety curtains drawn shut over each of the windows. It smells like hair tonic and moth-repellant and Sirius snuffles his nose, trying to find any trace of the crisp autumn air he knows is just outside, just feet away. He gets nothing; only dust and musty old relatives.  
  
He swings his feet under his chair where they don’t yet reach the carpet. He pinches his tongue between his teeth to keep from talking.  
  
There is a cake in front of him. Sparkly candles. Bright pinpoints of warmth in the otherwise hateful atmosphere. The icing is emerald green, adorned with piped silver rosettes, neatly done. It’s Kreacher’s work; he’s always been a dab hand at pastry. There are no letters on the cake, but Sirius thinks the message reads loud and clear anyhow.  
  
He knows Father is still hounding after the school to have him re-sorted after the Gryffindor fiasco last week.  
  
“Blow them out, Sirius. You’re keeping our guests waiting.”  
  
“Yes, Father,” he mutters, failing to keep the cheek out of his tone.  
  
Father sets his wine glass down on the table with a thunk. Sirius takes in a deep breath and blows out the candles before he can be reprimanded, managing to snuff out almost all of them in one go. He huffs at the remaining two candles, and the room goes fully dark again.  
  
There are no family members singing, no happy returns. Nobody tells him to make a wish.  
  
He thinks of one anyhow. He closes his eyes and pleads silently to whoever could possibly listen that he might be taken away from this. He wishes for red and gold and warm, clean air, and for someone to sing on his birthday.  
  
His slice of cake goes uneaten and as soon as he’s able to, he escapes out into the garden and works at getting as many bits of dead leaf stuck to his dress robes as possible.  


  


\--

  
Sirius is surprised to find he’s not the only boy hauling an overnight bag up towards Gryffindor Tower this Sunday evening. He recognizes the small lad with the wary eyes from his dormitory, but he didn’t bother to remember his name, with all that was happening that first week after the Sorting. They get stuck together on the same landing when one of the staircases decides to shift.

“Bugger,” Sirius says. The word echoes and bounces off the stone walls surrounding them. “This is lovely. Bloody perfect. It’s not like I was tired or anything.” He kicks at the banister to his left.

The boy raises an eyebrow and looks him over. “Alright?” he says. There’s the faintest hint of smile twitching near the corners of his mouth.

Sirius glares at him. “Yeah, _alright_ ,” he parrots back. He turns back to the staircases and kicks at the banister again.

“It’ll shift back around in two minutes,” comes the quiet voice again from off to his right. “But then, who knows? Maybe if you keep abusing it, it’ll change its mind--”

Kick. Kick. Kick.

“--And not come back at all,” he finishes.

Sirius whirls on him. “Is there a problem?”

“Oi! Black!” A familiar voice ricochets down the stairwell at him. “What’s the story? Are you staying with us? Or are they sending you to rot down in the dungeons with the rest?”

“James, shut _up_!” he barks back. “You don’t have to shout so the whole school can hear, you clot!” He can see James poking his head over a banister far above them, his dark hair such a mess that Sirius is surprised Mother hasn’t magicked herself into the school to attack it with a wet comb.

The mild voice to his right pipes up again. “They’re sending you to be a Slytherin?”

“They are NOT,” Sirius grits out.

James’s voice calls back down. “Peter wants to know if you’ve got any sweets for your birthday!”

“Tell Peter he’s a fat idiot and doesn’t need anymore sweets!” he roars back.

The boy next to him clears his throat and shifts his bag up on his shoulder. “That’s good,” he remarks.

Sirius looks at him. “What, that Peter’s a fat idiot?” He notices the boy has smudgy dark circles under his eyes and a funny sickly pallor to his skin.

“That they’re not making you switch houses.”

“Oh.”

“The stairs are coming back,” the boy says, gesturing in front of them.

They climb up in silence until they are nearly at the correct floor. Sirius thinks he ought to ask the boy’s name, but before he does, the boy says, “You’re a bit mad, and snobby, but you’re not the Slytherin type.”

Sirius blinks. He’s at a loss for words, which is a rare occurrence for him.

James jogs down the hallway to meet them, his robes flapping up behind him. He nods at the other boy before throwing an arm about Sirius’s shoulders. “Alright, Lupin? Sirius, you will not BELIEVE the prank me and Peter got Filch with...”

Sirius listens to James natter on, and watches Lupin dodge past them and head for the Fat Lady. He wonders what he could possibly have done that’s made this odd, pale boy think he’s worth something.  


  


\--

  
The summer holiday after his fourth year at school, his little brother catches him snogging a Muggle boy in the park. The boy’s name is Roger, and he flees the scene immediately. That’s of no consequence to Sirius. Roger isn’t anyone to him.

He’s far more concerned with catching up to his weasel of a brother. His shoes smack at the pavement as he darts after him. “Regulus...you...absolute git!…” he shouts, panting. “Don’t you dare! Don’t… you dare… tell them!”

Regulus doesn’t stop, but Sirius is gaining quickly, the familiar neatly slicked hair and pressed clothing and polished oxfords coming into clear focus before him. At last, he’s close enough to swipe out and arm and snag the back of his belt, tugging sharply and sending him toppling to the ground. There’s the sharp thwack of Regulus’s knee striking the pavement.

“Don’t touch me!” Regulus yells. “Don’t!” He clutches at his knee. He’s paler than usual; it must have hurt. Sirius is glad for it.

“Keep your mouth shut, then!” Sirius shouts back. “Keep your bloody mouth shut about this, Reg, I fucking mean it…” He leans down to grab at his brother’s shirt collar but Regulus shoves him away.

“Don’t!” he cries again. He looks Sirius in the eyes, shaking where he sits on the pavement. “I have to tell them, Sirius. I have to. It’s not right!”

Sirius grits his teeth. He feels like he is vibrating with anger. He grabs at Regulus again, needing to do something, anything with his hands to quell the urge to hit something that is radiating through his body. Regulus shoves him back hard this time, managing to catch him off balance, and scrambles to his feet.

“Sirius, you know it’s not right! You know what’s happened to Uncle Alphard for it!”

“Regulus, you spineless… worthless…”

“You can try to to hit me again! It won’t stop me telling them.”

Sirius’s heart drops. “Reg,” he starts, the word coming out far more pleading than he means for it to. “Reg, come on.”

His brother turns from him and walks away.

He tells them.  


  


\--

  
James and Peter are out, Merlin knows where, doing Merlin knows what. It’s thunder and it’s lightning outside, and every few minutes there’s a flash of light and a boom that jolts Sirius’s already-frayed nerves and makes him jump. He’s pacing back and forth in the dormitory. Normally James is the one who paces, going over the details of their next wild scheme like a general preparing his troops for battle.

No scheme tonight, Sirius thinks. Just a mistake and the horrible consequences thereof.

Remus is sitting on the edge of his bed, quiet, calm in that infuriating way of his. Sirius looks everywhere but at him. His brain is racing but going nowhere. He can’t settle on one thought. He can’t focus. He feels positively manic.

“Sirius,” Remus starts, and even his voice is still, so very calm.

“No! Shut up, Moony!” Sirius says, continuing his paces. One, two, three, four…

“Sirius.”

“I said shut up!” One, two, three…

“Sirius, you’re panicking.”

“Shouldn’t I be panicking?!” he whines. “I told you I can’t talk about it yet, Remus, so please, please shut up!”

He hears Remus’s heavy footsteps against the floorboards, but his head is swimming and they sound very far away. Warm, broad hands grip his shoulders and spin him around gently.

Remus is there. Right there. In front of him.

“Sirius, stop.”

“You’re upset, you should be upset with me. It’s not right.” Sirius feels himself quaking under Remus’s hands. “I’m not right.”

“Padfoot,” Remus says, voice firm. He picks up one of his hands and brushes a fringe of Sirius’s hair back off his forehead. Sirius freezes. “Come on, it’s not just you.”

“It’s… what?”

“It’s. Not. Just. You. You crazy sod,” he repeats, his voice fond. Remus shifts his arms to reach around Sirius’s back and tugs him into a hug. Sirius feels far too shell-shocked to do anything but let his head drop into the warm space between Remus’s neck and shoulder.

The rumble of Remus’s voice in his ear quiets him, eases tension from his neck and shoulders and mind. “Sirius, you don’t listen, and you don’t pay any bloody attention. I’ve been here all the while.”  


  


\--

  
It’s the longest summer yet.

He’s made it to five weeks. Five long, horrible weeks in the house at 12 Grimmauld Place. He doesn’t know how much more he can stand. There is constant tension. It’s like being trapped on a cliff, surrounded by snarling lions. No way out and no way down.

His bedroom is stifling and humid. He spends hours staring off into nothing, trying to stop being conscious for a time. It never works. His mind is far too quick for him. It's a white rabbit that he is forever chasing, chasing, chasing.

Cleverness. Useless. It only serves to make him more aware of his misery.

He receives regular letters from James and from Remus. James sends him puzzles out of the Daily Prophet and little re-tellings of his continuing attempts to woo Lily Evans via Owl Post. Remus plays notation chess with him and reminds him to hold his tongue.

There eventually comes an evening where he forgets to do so. It’s nothing out of the ordinary that provokes him; it’s rather more the final straw laid on the back of a sick and dying camel. He thinks it’s been building in him for years.

He loses his head.

When he thinks back on that evening, later, all he remembers is quite a lot of shouting and adrenaline coursing through him like he had never felt before. Energy. Everything seemed to sparkle red.

He goes to Godric’s Hollow, of course. He is welcomed with open arms and a hot cup of tea.  


  


\--

  
Remus is stepping out of the Potter’s fireplace and striding over to him and Sirius is well and truly panicking, bracing himself for what’s sure to be a tirade of ‘You absolute fool!’ and ‘What the hell were you thinking, Sirius? Running away? What did I tell you about keeping your head!?’ Silver ash from the fireplace rises in puffs with every thump of Remus’s shoes on the carpet. Sirius can feel himself shaking. He starts babbling and can’t seem to stop.

“Look, Remus, I know you’re mad. I know it was stupid, I know.” His voice rises, shrilly with nerves. “It was so stupid. I just--”

He quiets abruptly as Remus pulls him into a fierce and ashy hug.

“I am so proud of you, Sirius,” he growls in his ear. “I am so bloody proud of you.”

Sirius wonders just how many times more he’s going to be struck dumb by Remus’s affection for him.  


  


\--

  
Today, it is his birthday.

It’s not actually his birthday. But they are celebrating all the same. The Potters insist on having a party for him before they all leave for their final year at school.

There’s a table set out in the orchard. The leaves haven’t yet begun turning their colors, but there are green and sour unripe apples dangling from the branches of every tree.

Remus is there. He’s in a red jumper, and he’s looking as pale and tired as ever, but he’s grown broad in the shoulder and tall and Sirius finds him more handsome here in the afternoon sun than he ever has.

James is there, too, and Peter, who is beaming proudly over the cake he helped Mrs. Potter in making.

When they sing to him, he tries very hard not to cry. They can’t possibly know what this all means to him, and yet somehow he thinks they must, with the way they have all come together here to give him this.

When he blows out the candles on his cake, he asks for nothing.


End file.
